After the Assassination

By Abin Chakraborty

Their shrunk shadows wailed
With chopped, barren trunks
And splinters of mutated limbs.

Birds, squirrels, bees –
Were evicted at once
Without paperwork  or plan.
Left to their fragments
Sans shades and song
They wander with
Dreams of a lost green home
Wobbling in fear between beaks.

Shackled behind bureaucratic tapes
I gaze at the forms of murder with intent
And ponder on the logic of a sabotaging self
That razes without guilt those networks of years
Dyed with nostalgic petals and prints
That float beyond ledgers and municipal pipes
With music that rings above engineer’s saw
With arias of an innocence long gone.

The welding and mixing goes on
For many a new tower of Celestial might
Building their nests on
Our urban skyline

And yet
my daughter keeps painting new trees
With mercury nestling in scorching forties.

Painting: Indian Art Zone

Bio:
Dr. Abin Chakraborty currently teaches as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Chandernagore College. He is the author of the monograph Popular Culture (Orient Blackswan, 2019) and editor of the international online journal Postcolonial Interventions. His articles have been published in various national and international journals and anthologies.

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